FARM LIFE FROM A FARM WIFE: Tapping maple trees turns into an adventure
Serene and miraculously changing every season, our woodland holds year-round wonders. We’ve harvested not only deer and turkeys, but also wood, making our farmhouse cozy as toast. It’s a multi-dimensional hunk of land we’ve been blessed to be the caretaker of. Turns out we get one more dimension out of it.
“Let’s tap some trees,” says he. My stomach dropped, eyes widened.
“Huh? What exactly are you pondering?” Thinking I’ll let him down slowly.
“I’m sick of making wood, and we have maples on the ridge. I don’t wanna stick pails on the trees halfway up the hill, just those we can get at without too much trouble.”
Four-wheeling around one day, we strolled along the soggy ridge, still decorated with winter’s blah, the moss-covered rounded stones, slick. Our ridge is at the edge of the field adjacent to the woods. He pointed out maples.
“There’s one, there’s one, here’s two, three, four; there’s another three, four.” There were enough for me to get a pretty good picture of exactly what he had in mind.
We (yes, I agreed) decided to tap 60 trees and instead of cooking it down, sell the sap. With zero supplies, we started shopping. Our adventure had begun. Perusing Marketplace, discovered pails in Cecil. Driving to Birnamwood, bought taps at Sippl’s. In Iola, purchased two 275-gallon white totes enclosed inside strong metal cases. We bought a strainer plus a calf pail at Fleet. The pail was for my benefit, as when he’d haul those full five-gallon pails to our trailer which held our totes, I’d pour it into the calf pail to easily hoist that through the strainer on the top of the totes.
Our overhead added up. We didn’t wanna add it up. Ignorance is bliss. We had a trailer hauled by our tractor, plus our ATV with a bed on the back for transporting supplies.
One sunny day, promising good sap running in the future, saw us drill 60 holes in maples on the ridge. We wore short sleeves and no coat. Spring is here. (We were duped.) We brought a cordless drill, hammer, pails and an optimistic attitude, which duplicating the upcoming weather trend, would fluctuate greatly. Coming home that late afternoon, our countenance pumped up; we were in our beloved woods, we are gonna help feed people. This is great. We rubbed our hands together with glee, patting ourselves on the back, eager to harvest sap.
First harvest brought a whopping 44 gallons. Our buyer was sympathetic; this was a lousy year so far. While it tested out very well, the quantity, not so much. We weren’t in this to make money, that was quite obvious, nor had it been our intent. We just wanted to get out in the woods. One day after the sap had frozen, chunking off a clear icicle, it tasted sweet as sugar cane. The sap was good, just solid.
That day, we had thought we could gather but the sap was trapped under a frozen layer of ice. The weathermen forecasted all-day rain coming, so to save what was good we stopped at every tap, covering each pail with a sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil.
One day in March after a particularly hard freeze and after some warmth that day, we decided to see what was going on out there. My husband started out in the tractor, hauling our trailered totes, me following in our ATV. Heading just down the lane going up to the woods, I noticed the tractor start to slide, then watched in horror as he kept sliding.
There’s a spring under the middle of the lane and because it had frozen, a 4-foot-wide ice pond formed, sloping downhill. The trailer followed the tractor, sliding sideways, and jackknifed down an incline. I hollered my husband’s name so loud my throat hurt. Helplessly watching him slide slow motion sideways in a big cab tractor was dreadful.
Hightailing it back to the farm to get another tractor and chain, we drove in from a different angle. Backing up to the site, we hooked the chain on. I had to drive the tractor pulling the tractor/trailer out. Shaking, I prayed, “Father, You’ll have to do this because I cannot.” Immediately, a sense of peace came over me, and I settled into a resolve.
It came out after two attempts. Relief and thankfulness flooded us both; he later admitted he was shaking, too. No machinery was broken, the trailer was in one piece and so were we. Thank you, God.
After an extremely disappointing early season, the sap started running, and it took off. A turnaround! First of April brought warm temps in the day, freezing at night, which is ideal, despite the mud. Pulling taps third week in April, all-in-all a great experience, one we’ll repeat next year, Lord willing.
Then says he one day, “You know … there are a bunch of wild blackberries out there.” Oh-oh.
Thank you, Father, for the harvest gifts from your woods.
(“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Genesis 8:22)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.